1ZLIB DATA COMPRESSION LIBRARY 2 3zlib 1.2.3 is a general purpose data compression library. All the code is 4thread safe. The data format used by the zlib library is described by RFCs 5(Request for Comments) 1950 to 1952 in the files 6http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1950.txt (zlib format), rfc1951.txt (deflate format) 7and rfc1952.txt (gzip format). These documents are also available in other 8formats from ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/png/documents/zlib/zdoc-index.html 9 10All functions of the compression library are documented in the file zlib.h 11(volunteer to write man pages welcome, contact zlib@gzip.org). A usage example 12of the library is given in the file example.c which also tests that the library 13is working correctly. Another example is given in the file minigzip.c. The 14compression library itself is composed of all source files except example.c and 15minigzip.c. 16 17To compile all files and run the test program, follow the instructions given at 18the top of Makefile. In short "make test; make install" should work for most 19machines. For Unix: "./configure; make test; make install". For MSDOS, use one 20of the special makefiles such as Makefile.msc. For VMS, use make_vms.com. 21 22Questions about zlib should be sent to <zlib@gzip.org>, or to Gilles Vollant 23<info@winimage.com> for the Windows DLL version. The zlib home page is 24http://www.zlib.org or http://www.gzip.org/zlib/ Before reporting a problem, 25please check this site to verify that you have the latest version of zlib; 26otherwise get the latest version and check whether the problem still exists or 27not. 28 29PLEASE read the zlib FAQ http://www.gzip.org/zlib/zlib_faq.html before asking 30for help. 31 32Mark Nelson <markn@ieee.org> wrote an article about zlib for the Jan. 1997 33issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal; a copy of the article is available in 34http://dogma.net/markn/articles/zlibtool/zlibtool.htm 35 36The changes made in version 1.2.3 are documented in the file ChangeLog. 37 38Unsupported third party contributions are provided in directory "contrib". 39 40A Java implementation of zlib is available in the Java Development Kit 41http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/util/zip/package-summary.html 42See the zlib home page http://www.zlib.org for details. 43 44A Perl interface to zlib written by Paul Marquess <pmqs@cpan.org> is in the 45CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network) sites 46http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Compress/ 47 48A Python interface to zlib written by A.M. Kuchling <amk@amk.ca> is 49available in Python 1.5 and later versions, see 50http://www.python.org/doc/lib/module-zlib.html 51 52A zlib binding for TCL written by Andreas Kupries <a.kupries@westend.com> is 53availlable at http://www.oche.de/~akupries/soft/trf/trf_zip.html 54 55An experimental package to read and write files in .zip format, written on top 56of zlib by Gilles Vollant <info@winimage.com>, is available in the 57contrib/minizip directory of zlib. 58 59 60Notes for some targets: 61 62- For Windows DLL versions, please see win32/DLL_FAQ.txt 63 64- For 64-bit Irix, deflate.c must be compiled without any optimization. With 65 -O, one libpng test fails. The test works in 32 bit mode (with the -n32 66 compiler flag). The compiler bug has been reported to SGI. 67 68- zlib doesn't work with gcc 2.6.3 on a DEC 3000/300LX under OSF/1 2.1 it works 69 when compiled with cc. 70 71- On Digital Unix 4.0D (formely OSF/1) on AlphaServer, the cc option -std1 is 72 necessary to get gzprintf working correctly. This is done by configure. 73 74- zlib doesn't work on HP-UX 9.05 with some versions of /bin/cc. It works with 75 other compilers. Use "make test" to check your compiler. 76 77- gzdopen is not supported on RISCOS, BEOS and by some Mac compilers. 78 79- For PalmOs, see http://palmzlib.sourceforge.net/ 80 81- When building a shared, i.e. dynamic library on Mac OS X, the library must be 82 installed before testing (do "make install" before "make test"), since the 83 library location is specified in the library. 84 85 86Acknowledgments: 87 88 The deflate format used by zlib was defined by Phil Katz. The deflate 89 and zlib specifications were written by L. Peter Deutsch. Thanks to all the 90 people who reported problems and suggested various improvements in zlib; 91 they are too numerous to cite here. 92 93Copyright notice: 94 95 (C) 1995-2004 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler 96 97 This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied 98 warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages 99 arising from the use of this software. 100 101 Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose, 102 including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it 103 freely, subject to the following restrictions: 104 105 1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not 106 claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software 107 in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be 108 appreciated but is not required. 109 2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be 110 misrepresented as being the original software. 111 3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution. 112 113 Jean-loup Gailly Mark Adler 114 jloup@gzip.org madler@alumni.caltech.edu 115 116If you use the zlib library in a product, we would appreciate *not* 117receiving lengthy legal documents to sign. The sources are provided 118for free but without warranty of any kind. The library has been 119entirely written by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler; it does not 120include third-party code. 121 122If you redistribute modified sources, we would appreciate that you include 123in the file ChangeLog history information documenting your changes. Please 124read the FAQ for more information on the distribution of modified source 125versions. 126